The Beginning
by beansnbarley
Summary: How Ororo becomes Storm and joins the X-Men.
1. Chapter 1

The air was hot. It was always hot. The sand blew regardless of the wind, like a lost soul looking for anywhere to be other than where it should. The grit blew against her face but she disregarded it, searching for her next target. She must make her quota; must deliver something to the King, or there would be worse things to deal with besides being blasted in the face with sand. She scanned the crowd; this was the Cairo Market. Everyone made it here: local, tourist, rich, poor, buyer, seller, King, thief. All made it to the Market. She smiled and stepped into the swells of people.

The Market was a creature all its own. The wares changed daily, and the cacophony of smells and sounds re-made the skin of the creature each dawn. The bones changed as the stalls did and only those that lived and died here could make heads or tails of it all. She was a child of this place; she felt the pulse of it as though it were her own heart beating in her chest. Tourists to this world, for it was its own world, stuck out as a cancer in the body of the Market. She let the waves of people carry her indifferently through the square, keeping her eyes open for the perfect mark.

Ororo Munroe was twelve, this year. She had been raised in these streets; an orphan after her parents were killed in an earthquake. She didn't remember much about her parents, but she remembered the aftermath. She could recall with achingly accurate detail the screeching sounds of twisting metal as the car roof caved in, having been swallowed by the gaping rift that had appeared out of nowhere. She could remember her mother's scream, her father's violent twist of the steering wheel, and then crashes like explosions. If she shut her eyes tight, she would still be able to see the front of the car filled with rubble and her parents' lifeless bodies. Even in the midst of all of these people, in the middle of the day, with her face warmed by the sun, if she tried, she could vividly recount every pebble that should've been the filling of her grave.

But it wasn't. She had lived.

Men had seen it happen. They were tending their livestock and the ground had begun to shake; they had taken shelter, and when they and their families were safe, they had looked for other survivors. Her parents' car had been dismissed as a hopeless case; there were people in dire straits all around. The volunteers had come and had cleared debris, rebuilt buildings, re-dug wells. They repaired fences and fixed the road as best they could, and all the while, they wondered how to get a buried car out of the ground. The Ethiopian government responded quickly; after all, the country was far more prone to these things than in other parts of the continent. It still wasn't fast enough for a girl trapped in what should have been her coffin.

Eventually the authorities had pulled the mangled car from the clutches of the earth and to their surprise, they had found amongst the two dead adults, one very much alive young girl. How she had managed to survive at all was anyone's guess. They had transported her to a local orphanage while they figured out the legalities of her situation. The girl had not waited for the bureaucracies of adults; she had escaped with others in the dead of night. And while the alarms of the orphanage blared, the girl and her new-found family escaped into the night. She barely remembered the life she had shared in America with her parents…and her older sister.

The gang travelled for seven days via A1 until they finally made Cairo. At their arrival, the oldest of their group stole bread and wine and the group celebrated their freedom. Ororo was six. The Eldest was Amadi. He had come from Somalia where his mother had died in the civil war and his father was imprisoned for piracy. He had grown up on the streets; he knew what their rag-tag gang needed to do to make it here in this new place. Amadi taught them to pick locks and pockets. He taught them how to evade, because to be caught was tantamount to death. They learned the fine arts of coercion and, if all else fails, bribery, so that they may move freely among residences surrounding Cairo. They learned to trust each other and they, in a way, made a life for themselves. This is how Ororo grew up; she was their bait at first and then, eventually, she came into her own. She earned her name in this world of thieves, and drew the attention of someone that would break her haphazard family apart.


	2. Chapter 2

He had seemed an easy hit. She could lift the gun off of a policeman and steal, with ease, the first quarter a miser had ever earned. But this man was different. She had spotted him in the middle of an entourage of women, his extremely expensive clothing earning every dollar he'd spent on them attempting to keep his fat encased. Every one of his plump fingers sported a ring, and gold chains dripped from his neck. He wore a fez and circular sunglasses that seemed to rest more on the fat of his cheeks than his nose. He seemed a little intoxicated and definitely preoccupied with the women fawning on him. Ororo smiled to herself and moved into the crowd, choosing a route that would allow her to intersect him in a natural way.

She had no more than lifted her hand, ready to pull the man's wallet from his front pocket, when he had turned, lightning fast, and grabbed her wrist.

"And what do we have here? A little thief?" He sneered.

"Of course not, sir. I was just going to ask you to point me to the nearest ENP (Egyptian National Police) station, please?" She batted her eyelashes and attempted to look like the most innocent eleven-year-old girl in existence.

"Oh-ho! I think not, little one. I'm quite familiar with your game," he leaned close, too close, and whispered into her ear, "I know what you're thinking and you're quite right to be afraid of me."

He pulled away and grinned. It wasn't the kind of grin that some of the boys of the gang sported when they were being mischievous; it was the kind of grin that a psychopath bestows upon his victim moments before he dismembers her. It was evil. Ororo tried to back away, but the man held her wrist fast. She looked to the women for help; but the looks on their faces, in their eyes, was vacuous. She would find no help there.

"No. No you won't. These girls, they belong to me." His unholy grin widened and Ororo began to sweat.

"Listen, mister, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come at you." Perhaps honesty was the best policy in this situation. "I'll…I'll tell my friends; we'll leave you alone. Just please, let me go."

"Friends, huh? And where are these friends of yours?"

"We work different sections; this is mine. I'm really sorry. Please."

"Oh, I don't think so. You see, I like to be sure that I'm getting the best part of the bargain and street urchins aren't exactly known for their integrity."

"I'll scream; there's an ENP down that street. They'll come. They'll get you. I'll tell them you propositioned me."

The man threw back his head and laughed. "They will, will they? No. No I don't think anyone will help you at the moment."

Something had been tickling her at the base of her neck; a feeling that things weren't quite right. She had attributed it to the stranger gripping her wrist ever tighter, but she suddenly realized it wasn't him. The Market was quiet. She looked around suddenly; the people weren't moving. They. Weren't. Moving. Hundreds and hundreds of people were just standing there; no, not just standing. They looked…paused. Like reality was a movie and someone had put the video on pause. Men sat in chairs at a bistro, their glasses half raised to their mouths. People were hovering mid-step in the street. A customer was engaged in a heated bargain with a merchant, but the expressions were frozen on their faces, mid-argument. Her eyes widened and she looked back to the man, slack-jawed.

"You see? I don't think anyone will bother us. Now, why don't you tell me about this little gang of yours?"

Ororo was scared. Her heart thudded in her chest. She was in a kind of trouble that she had never been in before; she was sure none of the gang had ever been in trouble this dire, either. The man leaned close to her face again and sniffed. He giggled: a most unsettling sound.

"I love the smell of your fear. Let's go somewhere more comfortable, shall we?" He began to drag Ororo through the strangely un-moving Market.

As her brain started to shut down in panic, her body reacted of its own accord. Her heels dug into the dirt of the road and she leaned back to fight his grip. Her right arm, previously minding its own business at her side, lifted, her hand facing palm-out towards the stranger. The world had been stilled by some magic of the man now dragging her off to a fate better un-thought of. Now it wasn't still, so much as it was calm. She could feel the air and not just the air, but the moisture in the air. She could sense the static electricity of the atmosphere and knew she could channel it. She could call it to her; she could escape! The hairs on her arm stood up and her short white hair haloed her head. There was a tension in her mind that, while a little discomforting, cleared the fog she had been in. That tension increased, reaching a point that she was sure was going to crack her skull open and then – ZAP! A bolt of lightning rippled along her right arm, shot from her hand and smacked the stranger full in the chest. Her left arm was ripped from his grip as he flew backwards thirty feet, smacking into a building. The Market burst back into life; people looked around bewildered and noticed the smell of ozone. They noticed the fat man in a fez, clothes smoking as he leaned against a brick wall that had cracked upon his impact. A woman screamed. Ororo took that as the perfect time to make her exit.

Back at their hideout, Ororo slammed the door shut and collapsed against the door. She was panting, but she suddenly smiled and burst into laughter. She looked at her right hand and hooted in maniacal delight. She gripped her right hand with her left and laughed more loudly, sliding down the door. Her laughter turned into sobs as the adrenalin wore off. She was safe, but it had been close.

At some point she must have dozed off because she was still there against the door when the other members of the gang returned home.

"Hey! Sumfin's wrong wifa door!"

"Whaddya mean? Nuffin's wrong wiff dat damn door. You just a p****."

"F*** you, Hanif! Sumfin's wrong wiffa door I tell you! It won't open!"

Ororo was awakened by the commotion and rose to open the door for the boys. She nearly got punched in the face for her trouble, as Masud had been about to pound on the door to showcase its steadfastness to the grinning Hanif.

"'Ro! You sh*tface! You were holdin the door closed!"

"Tol' you you was just bein a p****, Ma." Hanif giggled.

Ororo let them in. Masud was sixteen, Hanif fifteen. They were always at each other's throats, but it was all in jest. They were second and third in command to Amadi. The two managed to stop their bickering long enough to get a glimpse of Ororo's face.

"Hey, 'Ro, wazzit?" Masud looked at her carefully.

Hanif seemed to notice that the eleven-year-old girl wasn't her standard bubbly self and promptly took her by the arm, leading her to the closest chair. He said nothing, but got a pot out and dipped it into the water bucket. He set the pot of water on the kitchen's single burner and started it. While he waited for it to boil, he got a tea bag and a cup ready. The group didn't have much, but Hanif had a private stash of honey straws. He sensed that now was a good time for one. Masud had pulled up the other chair and taken Ororo's hands in his. He was gently massaging her hands, murmuring soft condolences. They were seated thus when the gang's two other females walked through the open door.

Chione was the second oldest of the gang at twenty-two. As she walked into the room, she instantly took in the scene and came to a wrong, although sadly common, conclusion.

"Oh my god. Who did this to you?!" She pushed Masud out of the way and took Ororo's hands. "Who did this to you, 'Ro? Who hurt you? Where? Would you recognize him?"

The older girl barked an order to Massika, the girl she had walked in with. "Run a bath!"

Running water was a luxury the gang could not afford, though their abode came equipped with it. No one took a bath; it was just too pricey. But Chione was not one to be trifled with and Massika rushed to the bathroom to begin the task. Masud stood stupidly in the corner, and Hanif, his water boiling, poured some into the cup with the tea bag. He stirred the steeping tea with one of his beloved honey sticks and then handed it to Ororo.

"Careful, 'Ro; s'hot."

"Thanks." She took the cup from his hands but didn't drink.

The gang's other four members, to include their fearless leader Amadi, entered the building. They were laughing and poking fun at one another, that is, until Amadi saw the scene before him. Chione was crouched before Ororo, Masud stood to the side, and Hanif was fingering his honey straws as he held their jar in his hand. He saw timid, kind Massika standing in the doorway of bathroom and realized that water was running in there. He, like Chione, came to the instantaneous, yet erroneous, conclusion that Ororo had been raped. The joking of the three boys behind him, also sensing that something terrible had happened, stopped. Amadi rushed to Chione's side, kneeling in front of Ororo.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Can you tell me what happened? Do you want everyone to leave us for a bit?"

"No! No, I want everyone to stay. We're…I…I think we're in trouble. I…I think we need to leave."

There was a murmur of surprise from the rest of the gang. Chione looked to Massika, who wore an expression of deep understanding on her face. Chione and Massika had both been raped numerous times in the Ethiopian orphanage. When it had come time to escape, it was Chione who had insisted that Amadi include the recently-arrived Ororo in the plan; she couldn't bear to have the six-year-old put through the same torments she and Massika had endured. She knew how Ororo felt; she, too, had wanted to be far away from the innocence-stealing perpetrators.

"'Ro, we won't let them hurt you again," she promised.

The girl's gaze strayed from the far-off void of memory and focused on Chione's face. Her blue eyes brightened with realization and she cried, "No! No, Chi, I wasn't raped!"

Chione let out an audible sigh of relief; Massika's hands went to her face in a silent prayer of thanks. The boys relaxed as well, and Masud, feeling the need to purge his anxiety, said, "well, then, guess there's no need for an expensive swim!"

Amadi glared at Masud, who shrank into himself.

"What happened, then?"

"There was a man…" Ororo began, then took a sip of her tea. She then recounted the afternoon's events as accurately as possible, to include the lightning that she had summoned. At the end of her tale, the group was silent.

"You say you blasted'im…right in tha'face?" Kamuzu, one of the younger boys, asked.

"Yes. It…it just came out of nowhere. Well, not really nowhere…I could feel it there, it was in the wind," she replied.

Chione and Amadi exchanged a look.

"Do you think you could it again?" he asked.

"I…," she reached back into herself and tried to sense the power as she had before. It was there, laying curled and snug at the back of her mind, like a fat old cat by a fireplace. It had never been there prior to this afternoon, but now it was. She didn't know how, but she knew it would come again if she called. What was more, she knew the power wasn't limited to electric bolts; she knew that if she willed it, the rains would come and bless the face of Africa*. "Yes. Yes I could do it again."

Again, Amadi and Chione glanced at each other.

"What? What is it?" Ororo looked at one and then the other.

Amadi sighed, "I don't know. I've heard rumors of people with special powers, but that's all: rumors. I've never known anyone that did and I don't know what do to for you—"

"I know what to do!" Masud grinned. "We have you 'lec-tree-cute all the marks! We'll be rich!" He beamed.

Amadi glared at him. Ororo sensed she wasn't making herself nearly clear enough and spoke.

"It's not my power that you should be thinking about! It's that man! I'm telling you HE FROZE THE MARKET! FROZE IT. I saw a man pouring his drink into his mouth and HIS STUPID MOUTH WAS OVER-FLOWING! That man did it! He stopped them! He…I don't know, but whatever I can do, this man can do more and he's DANGEROUS!"

"I think the girl is quite right." The voice, sinuous, came from behind them.

The group turned as a whole and met the bespectacled eyes of the fat man in a fez. He leaned upon a cane carved of ivory, a ruby the size of Ororo's fist crowning the top. He grinned in that murderous way and took a step further into the room. Men with guns followed behind him and spread out amongst the gang, cornering them. Massika began to silently weep. Amadi thought, for a moment, of fighting. The fat man shook his head and made a gesture. One of the armed guards took an unoccupied chair and put it to the side of his boss. The fat man sat. He reached into his expensive coat pocket and produced a cigar. He held it out and another of the guards came forward to clip the end. The man held the newly cut cigar to his lips and the guard produced a butane lighter to light it. The fat man inhaled again and again. The air filled with the pungent smoke, swirling lazily in the night currents. The fat man puffed again and then spoke.

"My name is Amahl Farouk, and I propose a partnership you simply can't refuse…"

*Sorry, I couldn't resist. 8)


End file.
